Come Monday, Sao embarked on his usual morning commute with a mixture of relief and trepidation, after a night of ponderous visions. He saw faces distended, jaws mulching and churning, kneading themselves into smaller and smaller fleshy wads until they vanished into the shadows. 

Entering the familiar foyer of Rai’s office-apartment gave him some real comfort, a modest space adorned with nothing but a wooden bench, well-used coat rack and corkboard pinned with some of Rai’s greatest hits. When the morning sun streamed in through the cloudy glass panes of front door, the apartment was cast in a dusty golden glow that had Sao’s eyelids drooping by the time he reached his desk.

He entered the office and automatically went for the light switch. Whenever Rai pulled at all-nighter at home, he tended to leave the light on, only to forget it by sunrise. Sure enough, Rai was hunched over his desk, a document open on one of his two monitors and various annotated sheets fanned out around his keyboard.

“Good morning, Rai.”

“Morning.” He actually glanced up, unsmiling but without any particular irritation. “I forgot about the lights again.” 

“Not to worry.” Sao surveyed the scene. The office too was basking in the golden glory of the morning, in which the eclectic mashup of furniture styles managed to look rather appealing. The massive laser printer gleamed beside a grim hardwood bench that looked like it had been lifted from a public park. In the corner slouched a worn sofa (it had not seen much use in Rai’s home, but had been bought in its secondhand state), and in between the seating fixtures was a low, square coffee table which completed the en-suite ‘lounge’. Sao had come to think of the collection as something of an ensemble. Rai would scoff at that kind of storybooking - but, he reasoned, he had never seen Rai so much as suggest breaking the little unit apart.

Sao smiled to himself and took a deep breath. He managed just one. Watering eyes fell over Rai’s desk. “Mind if I open a window?”

“Go ahead.” This time, Rai did not look up from his cacophonous typing.

The window behind Sao’s desk was the first to be put to use. It opened to a burst of birdsong and a breeze, fresh with the grass and green of the new season. Sao stuck his head between the iron bars and gulped air.

On the corner of Rai’s desk was a wrinkled paper bag printed with the words BLUNA BURGER - BEST DEAL IN TOWN. At the bottom of the bag was a stain. Sao had grown used to the smell of coffee (Rai ran his coffee makers in near perpetuity) but on this particular morning the room smelled strongly of meat. His nose was in a tailspin. It had taken an hour of scrubbing to get the stench off after the expo. The suit he’d worn was still quarantined on an outdoor hanger. And after taking such pains to escape it, the monster was back. No, it had been waiting.

“What a fitting choice for dinner,” Sao croaked.

“It was more like breakfast.” A rust-red eye peeked between the two monitors that walled Rai's workspace from the rest of the room. “Remembering that semifinal match made me want a burger, somehow. While we’re on the topic - the expo organizers and convention center council sent the police some security footage and event recordings last night, I forwarded them to you. You can take a look when you have the time.”

“Thanks.” With an experimental sniff to confirm it was safe to begin the day, Sao opened his laptop. “Anything that you found interesting?” It went without saying that Rai would have nosed through them already.

“Confirmation of a few things. Nothing that tells us what happened to Cadoc.”

“A shame.”

Rai shrugged, without letting up on his keyboard. “If there was anything wildly incriminating on those tapes, we wouldn’t have gotten them in such a timely manner. But see what you think.”

Sao began to sift through his emails. Under a few work documents from HQ and a barbecue invitation (which he’d have taken to gleefully if not for the sights and smells of the day before), he saw Rai’s message with its heap of attachments.

There were short descriptions of interviews with the event technicians and judges. He skimmed each one as he opened them.

In police confidentiality, and suspecting their employer might soon release them, Nero’s maids had come out with a few gripes about his hygiene, mannerisms, and household. He made a mess of the bathrooms. He slept past deadlines and often forgot to pay their salaries until reminded. He sucked down strange pills like candy and laughed about it. He’d be the death of himself. But they were not spiteful: both women readily confirmed that Nero’s whereabouts were accounted for before, during and after the match. And kidnapping? They were stunned. That was the reason for the interview? He might be a loon, but he was a toothless one. Nero held no grudges against anyone in the tournament. Even if he did, there was no doubt he lacked the finesse and motivation to take on such a plot.

Nero himself was being kept in police custody until further notice.

Basil’s posse were a less orderly bunch, but confirmed each others’ whereabouts (in the room) and Basil’s (in the toilet) as best they could. They had all moved with him from Canyon City, of the Southern continent, when he joined Central's eating league, and their ability to stay hinged on Basil’s competitive status. As such they were as worried about their passports as they were for their friend.

Kep was confirmed to have no companions with him on the day.

There were a few longer reports regarding Nero and Kep’s ‘incidentals’ which had come to light during the investigation, and called for their disqualifications from the Meat Cup. Sao set them aside for later. Even if he more or less knew the content already, no doubt they would make for less breezy reading. Basil’s medical report was pending; the last update in record mentioned he was headed into surgery.

The noted of the various event staff and hall witnesses were sparse, but utilitarian. The show-runners worked according to an itinerary - after the match they marked down results, brought in the trays, conferred with the contestants, counted the scales, cleaned the equipment, arranged for pickups and so on - all listed out on a printout that had been hanging in the lounge. Sao sat back, gazing at the photograph of the little pen-marked sheet from afar.

Between 2 and 3 p.m., the logistics and press calls were to happen. That was when Cobalt, and the majority of organizers were in their lounge. In this window, Cadoc North was taken from his room, through to the main hall, and out the main doors, avoiding the encampment of reporters by the staff exit. Miss North was now unaccounted for, as well.

He picked out the security camera footage from the main hall, when the two hooded figures emerged from the staff area. The thrum of the crowd muffled any distinct sounds, but events appeared as Trae and his fellow observers described: one figure dragging the other out the staff hall, and a familiar looking group of men in Nero-themed apparel stalking after them. The men had been truthful when they said no fight had occurred between them and the hooded figures - the quartet of women, Trae’s friends in officewear, had cut in before any such escalation. There had certainly been an escalation after that, but in the fracas the hooded figures made their escape, and the head of one cracked against the door on his way out, knocking back the hood. It was hard to see the face. The interior view of the doorway showed only a black silhouette against blinding sun. The exterior view was a wash of blue and grey shadows.

The still-standing hooded figure adjusted their companion, and then the two fled into the parking lot. Then a car flew out, and moments later, Trae’s billowing charcoal cloud on its tail. The car appeared to be black or dark gray, a shifting blur in the glare of the sun. Sao hit pause, unpause, pause, unpause. All he saw was the blur, objects caught between two places at all times, its form painfully split like a drunken hallucination.

“Did any of the traffic cameras catch a license plate, maybe model of the vehicle?”

“Something fast and hard to make out.” Rai was thundering away at his keyboard with such ferocity that Sao was immediately sorry for bothering him. But Rai answered, again, without pausing his hands. “The car was parked way out on the edge of the lot. Only distant shots - and the sun and dark car made it tough to see even when they drove close to the expo center. We’re checking if city traffic cams picked up a speeder.” He shook his head, a bit more wildly than was called for. “Not many other cars were leaving at the time, so the driver just gunned it all the way to the exit and left us with this big black blur. Not to mention the black blur that Trae contributed.” Rai’s hand scrambled around the table for his coffee cup. “At least he got a look at the car.”

“He did?” Sao rewound the tape.

“The smoke did, I guess. Trae can feel things through his aura, at some level. Sharp fender, low-hanging body, two exhaust pipes. A grille with a dot pattern.”

Sao smiled. “Impressive.”

“People can still screw up when describing things they saw up close. But it sounds like a pricey sports car; that would match the speed that you see it take off - and it’s something to go on, for now.”

Rai located a coffee mug under his papers and tipped the cup over his face, but was long dry. He slammed it back down loud enough to scatter the birds that had been gathering outside on the windowsill. “Carme North.”

Sao’s thoughts seemed to have also scattered. “Yes?”

“That’s Cadoc’s sister and his manager. Did you see her?” Rai sprawled over his padded swivel chair. “Watch the thing backwards.”

Recollecting himself, Sao realized what this meant and picked out the recordings in order and started from the top. The contestants were in their rooms in the hours before the match. At 11am, the back doors opened and reporters were permitted to enter the lounge; according to the itinerary this was when the pin prick test occurred. 

Thirty minutes later, the reporters were funneled back out, and the contestants returned to their rooms. Several staff members headed for the toilets and gradually emerged, taking to their proper places - except for Kep, who turned casually from side to side as if he were watching clouds go by, and ducked into Cadoc’s room.

When one of Nero’s assistants exited the pink bathroom, her ensemble of black and white lace snagged Sao’s eye so efficiently that he nearly missed what he had come for. The maid violently hiked a shifted garter into place, then entered Nero's room and closed the door, leaving a second woman alone in the hall. Sao hadn’t noticed her until that moment - dark haired and tight faced, and plainly dressed, though not in the uniform of a technician or cleaner, but a suit jacket and skirt.

The woman strode down the hall, gazing at her phone, walking past the lounge, past Kep and Nero’s rooms and into Cadoc’s. There was silence for a few moments - as Kep put it, she watched him a while before making her move - then a burst of inaudible conversation, and Kep slid out of the room. A hand in the pocket of his tan slacks, with the air of a businessman he surveyed his surroundings again. Once he confirmed nobody was watching, he took off at a sprint for his room.

Miss North had been in the hall for all of forty seconds. 

At 12:40, the cooler and scales were pushed out of the lounge, and everyone exited into the main hall for the competition. They returned at 1:40. Kep, Nero and Basil made beelines for the toilet.

Miss North got ten more seconds of screentime when she exited Cadoc's room around 2.10pm. At this time, there was nobody in the hallway; the staff were in the lounge and competitors in their room. Slung across her shoulders was one black duffel bag. She exited the staff area for the main hall. He did not see her face again. Instead, at 2.18, a grey hooded figure entered the staff area and pressed against Cadoc’s door. Sao squinted. Unlocking? 

Seven or so minutes after entering, the figure walked out of the room carrying what could only have been Cadoc’s limp body, in a matching hooded sweatshirt, his arm over their shoulder. He twitched or shuddered, just slightly, as the two stumbled out of frame.

And so on.

Frowning, Sao rewound the tape and settled on the best shot he could find of Ms. Carme North. It took a while to spot her. She was nearly indistinguishable from the female judges and reporters from a distance. The only difference he saw, and it could hardly be called significant, was that she looked a bit more severe in demeanour. Miss North had a ponytail wound so tightly that her hair was pulled smooth over head like a swim cap, and a small, pinched mouth that seemed doubly shrunk and expressionless under her masacara-lined eyes. She had so much pigment outlining them she might be considered a rival to Rai in dark eye rims.

But then, it could have been a trick of the fluorescent light, or the grainy footage. Sao found that he tended to scrutinize faces, especially those under cosmetics, perhaps because he feared people would scrutinize his. And, he was ashamed to admit thinking, Carme’s other features were unremarkable, at least on camera. Like her brother, she was of plain stature and coloration. She wore heels, but they were low.

Easier to walk in. Easier to go unnoticed. A bit unsettled that he had turned against poor Carme so quickly, Sao rested on his elbows and panned on, until he found a frame of the two hooded figures in (near) full-body display. He squinted at the shoes of the hooded figures and smiled hopelessly. Both were wearing red sneakers.

“Not hard to change clothes,” he murmured.

“Find anything?”

“Not exactly. But do you think Miss North…” Sao drew out his supposition carefully. “Would have had a reason to be worried for her brother’s safety?

The baleful red eye appeared in the gap between the screens again. “You mean, would she have a reason to smuggle him out of there? Could she be the one who pulled on a hood and dragged him out?”

“Yes, that’s what I was wondering. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no rush to incriminate her. She could easily have had a reason. Cadoc was in bad shape according to those that saw him being dragged through the main hall. Or maybe, something could have happened to Miss North when she first went outside, before the hooded person entered. If so, she might have been done in before Cadoc was even taken.” He paused, feeling the sting of what he’d said already. “It’s hard to say. The supposed kidnapper walked in a little after Miss North walked out, and seemed to unlock the door with a key. In terms of action and timing, it could have been her.”

“Or it could have been someone who grabbed the keys off her and entered with the intention of getting in and out of that room unnoticed.”

Sao ran a hand through his hair. “Cadoc being locked in the room while she went out - maybe they were afraid of something. Whether it was her or a stranger who did it, the bigger questions remain: where did they take Cadoc?”

Sparrows were returning to the windowsill beside him. He wished he had something to give them.

“We also gotta ask why Miss North went out at that time in the first place. It looked like she was going towards the parking lot with her belongings.” Rai swung on his swivel chair, contemplating his empty cup. “She probably knew the hallway would be empty at that time. There were a lot of ways she would know - by the itinerary, or by asking someone, or just from listening in on Cobalt and company. Was she looking for a chance an escape?” Rai banged down his cup, and the birds scattered. “Could have been someone inside was threatening Cadoc, or had already done something to him, somehow - and Miss North was trying to get him out without hassle, or reporters noticing. Alternatively, her initial exit was just a snack run, something simple. A stranger with a bone to pick with her or Cadoc caught her in the parking lot, took her out, and snuck back in for Cadoc within that lucky timeframe, when he wouldn’t be noticed.”

“There were bloodied tissues in Cadoc’s room...” Sao was thinking aloud, but this only pushed him back into the fog. “Cadoc didn’t look injured when he came in from the match. And nobody else entered his room but Carme.” No, that wasn’t right. “Kep did, but that was before the match...”

“Let’s give this one some time.” Rai flexed his wrists and resumed assault on his keyboard. “I gotta finish a review first and get it submitted. HQ and their one-day notices… they’d better appreciate...”

Rai once again descended into valiant productivity.

They were getting close to eleven in the morning and Sao had not yet started any of his official assignments. His head already felt like it was locked in an impenetrable knot. Pulling at one place caused the whole tangle to catch and tug in five others. No decent work could be done. Closing all the footage, reports, and the emails from which they had sprung, he stretched and headed for the kitchen. He picked up Rai’s cup on the way over. “Some fresh coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Sao eyed Rai’s computer as he left. Rai got warmed up on most mornings with a fresh report on his left monitor, and some gory horror flick on his right. Today, however, he had swapped the slashers out for an old eating league broadcast. Distant figures over a checkerboard tablecloth were plowing through stacks of pie. 

Red pulp smeared their faces. Not so different from Rai’s horror fare after all.

The kitchen smelled only of coffee. Sao loaded a new filter and beans into the cleanest of Rai’s three coffee makers, and poured himself some hot water, sugar, and milk for tea.

The ritual of it settled his wires a little.

Winding himself into anxious fits wouldn’t help. Disappearances in Central weren’t rare; a cursory look through the police backlog suggested they were in fact all too common and often forgotten. In comparison to most victims, Cadoc’s case was hopeful. Police action had been surprisingly prompt. Perhaps there would be a ransom call. Cadoc was moderately famous, but not radical. There would be no statement to make in harming him.

In addition to that, Rai was on the case. Rai, who pored over the police archives to fill his sleepless nights, would doubtless comb through all possible avenues and every frame of footage he could find.

In truth, Rai rarely put Sao’s mind at ease. Rai was not the sort to tread lightly or speak delicately, and for Sao, discussion often became an exercise in forcing himself to see the bright side and humanity of disaster, disappearances, tragedy. In their line of work they inevitably came across atrocities in writing and occasionally in person. But at times, Rai’s mincing of villains had Sao rushing to defend them. Consider the killer’s childhood. Perhaps he was trying to be a good father. Perhaps she was in love. Rai didn’t care much about fathers or romance, and this meant Sao would have to wrack his brain for any morsel of good there was to suggest.

He mused over this cycle, stirring his cup with rhythmic taps of a spoon. How unsettling. So he only believed in Rai because he associated Rai with the taste of denial?

It seemed unkind to Rai, who really wasn’t a bad person, as far as Sao knew. He had become less severe in the recent weeks. It was like he had decided Sao was trustworthy enough, or unthreatening enough, to not need a militant supervisor. They were getting along.

And that could have been the denial speaking again.

Sao filled Rai’s mug and took it back to the office, along with his tea.

Rai was rejuvenated by the smell alone. He rose from his chair with an air of worship, and Sao could see clearly that the designated movie monitor was showing a close zoom of a man vomiting.

“You’re investigating all aspects, I see,” Sao said.

As he reached for his cup, Rai also pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, a disheveled, olive-green clump of a fieldcoat.

Sao smiled. “You’re headed out? Sorry I took so long.”

“Wasn’t too long. I am headed out, though. Nero was just released and there’s someone else to check on.” Sao’s quizzical face didn’t elicit anymore information. Instead, Rai inhaled half of his coffee and nodded toward the screen, where the unnamed contestant was spewing like a waterfall. “What do you think would cause an upset like that?”

Sao chose not to see any more than he already had. “Stomach problems.”

“If you or I ate twelve pies in one sitting, of course we’d be nauseous. But these guys train to suppress the gag reflex. And this guy just came in first place of his lot. What if it’s not the person, or the quantity, but the food itself?” Rai pondered the screen, one arm tucked under another, a knuckle pressed against his lip. A true detective’s poise, taking in every splattered second. Why this particular study called for such professionalism, Sao could not say. “Scale it down, then.” Rai raised his cup again. “If you were eating one pie, in a huge hurry, and there was something odd in it, do you think you’d notice?”

“Depends on what the offending item was.”

“Maybe rocks. Or a worm.”

Sao's tea was becoming hard to swallow.

“I don’t think I’d notice,” Rai admitted. “And once it was over, if nobody told you, do you think you’d actually figure it out eventually? Don’t know if I would either. Unless I got sick enough to suspect...”

Sao closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Thankfully, the air had freed itself of burger oil. “So you suspect this ‘reversal’ occurred due to worms in the pies?”

“I’m speculating. This match happened months ago. It’s too late to dig for food-based evidence.” Rai walked to the printer and snatched up a handful of sheets. He counted the pages and readied his stapler, nailing the pages with an explosive crack. “But there were two familiar contestants present. And yesterday’s mess might have given us a lead. Take a look at these.”

Sao needed another deep breath after that. “Is this related to the issue of Cadoc’s disappearance?”

“Maybe. The topic’s a little closer to the worms in the pies.”

“I’m not sure I want to read this first thing in the morning.”

“It’s almost noon.” Rai picked his bundle of keys off the desk. “And you probably should. Better if you know where we’re headed and why. I mean, if you aren’t too busy...”

If only he could decide after he’d read the sheets.

“You have five minutes,” Rai said, then went to the kitchen to get more coffee. No doubt he really would be done with the pot in five minutes.

Sao took the file and prayed there would be no mention of worms.

---

“Glass shards?” 

“Small pieces, but a lot of ‘em. I found some on the floor of the bathroom, in Basil’s - what’s the word they used... ‘discharge’.”

“Um. And what was the other one-” Sao folded the sheets back. “Zinc phosphide? Lab report says highly toxic - how did this end up on the tables? How would someone even get a hold of such a thing…?”

Rai’s shambling sedan screeched its way down the highway, over the bridge toward the inland residences. Sao wondered if Rai had heard him. It seemed like a bad idea to stick his neck into the ensuing battle between Rai, his steering column, and the car in front of them.

Rai's car had managed to export several smells from the weekend convention. There was the smell of strawberries, sugar, milk and fish - from the goodies he’d given Trae. A hint of blood. But above it all, there was the odor of Nero’s trash can, and what the reports called ‘discharge’, which called for all windows to be rolled down.

After forging past a slow-moving van and into their targeted low-rise neighborhood, Rai finally responded. “Forensics said that the sample in Basil looked like generic rat poison. As for how it got into the burgers, I guess we’ll find out.”

“Feeding rat poison to human beings.” Sao folded the sheets in a small square, eager to stow the words out of sight. “At an eating contest, of all places… that’s akin to publicly attempting murder.”

“Sick, huh?” Rai wrenched his sedan - which releases some ominous clicks and squeaks of protest - into a driveway. They pulled up beside a blue truck that had also seen better days. Punching the parking brake, Rai stepped out and went straight for the front door.

The layout of the neighborhood was a bit brusque, but thoroughly practical. They had come to one residence in the chessboard of identical homes; single-storey dwellings painted tan and grey, sectioned off with chain link fences and cracking concrete. 

Peering through an alley Sao saw a near-infinite line of the same muted grey brick, like reflections in a mirrored hall. He did find a soft spot for the little gardens that surrounded each house, where owners and nature alike made their mark. A pool of sunlit grass, some ornamental lanterns and pinwheels and birdhouses, and even a few daring perennial flowers brought life to the uniform streets. Cars added a sprinkle of bolder color, he was glad to see more than the city-standard grey variants. There was even some birdsong coming from a thin apple tree that one resident had carefully fitted into their tight square of property.

But Kep Albert’s house held no particular wonder. Even nature had been stingy: next to its verdant neighbors, the lawn was stiff and dry with only an empty clothes-hanger for decoration. The front of the residence was unadorned, save for the desolate blue van and now Rai’s sedan, slouched under the shadow of the house like battered hounds. 

Sao hadn’t been fond of Kep when they met, but he had a hard time believing Kep lived - or deserved to live - in this thankless little square. 

But the door opened promptly at Rai’s knocking, and sure enough, it was Kep who awaited them.

“Come in, detective. And…” He seemed unsure of what to call Sao. Both entered.